Responsibilities
- Lead a small team of engineers, product managers, and designers, running the org as it exists today while actively transforming how it operates tomorrow
- Serve as a hands-on technical force multiplier: architect systems, prototype with emerging AI tools, and model what great building looks like in practice
- Own your team's AI transformation strategy: identify where LLMs, agents, and AI-assisted workflows unlock the most leverage, deploy them deliberately, and measure the impact on shipping velocity and output quality
- Architect the decision of when to build vs. buy vs. orchestrate: you can assess AI vendor capabilities critically, know when a third-party model or tool is the right call, and when you need to own it
- Own the roadmap alongside Product and business partners; translate fuzzy business goals into focused, executable technical strategy
- Drive pragmatic, high-leverage engineering decisions: choose the right tool for the job, not the trendiest one, and know the difference
- Navigate organizational complexity with confidence. You know how to build consensus, move initiatives through cross-functional processes, and get things done without losing your edge
- Balance the tension between speed and stability for high-traffic, mission-critical financial systems
- Cultivate a culture of curiosity, ownership, and continuous learning, pushing your team to work AI-natively, not just AI-aware
- Ensure systems owned by the team meet availability, performance, Observability and security standards with a practical, risk-calibrated approach
Requirements
- 10+ years of software engineering experience, with meaningful time spent building and shipping in a startup or early-stage environment
- 3+ years managing an engineering team, ideally a cross-functional one including product and/or design
- Demonstrated ability to operate at a Staff or higher level technical depth alongside management responsibilities
- Demonstrated history of building and deploying AI-powered systems in production - not just integrating APIs, but owning reliability, observability, prompt pipelines, and eval frameworks for LLM-backed features
- Deep, hands-on familiarity with the current AI tooling landscape: you have opinions on agent frameworks, RAG architectures, model selection tradeoffs, and what "production-ready" actually means for GenAI systems
- Hands-on full-stack software engineering skills with experience in modern web systems (NextJS, TypeScript, AWS a strong plus)
- Genuine hacker mentality: you find the fastest, smartest path to a working solution and have the judgment to know when "good enough" is right and when it isn't
- Strong business acumen. You think about ROI, user impact, and revenue, not just technical elegance
- Proven ability to operate effectively inside a larger, more process-heavy organization without losing the startup bias for action
- Experience building scalable, reliable systems with a pragmatic approach to architecture and technical debt
- Strong communicator who can translate between technical and non-technical stakeholders and influence without authority
- Comfortable with the compliance and regulatory realities of financial products (or eager to get up to speed quickly)
Nice to Have
- Experience in FinTech, regulated industries, or consumer financial products
- Track record shipping AI-native features (agents, RAG pipelines, AI-assisted workflows) in a production environment, including building the observability and eval infrastructure to sustain them
- Experience leading a team through an AI workflow transformation - not just adopting tools, but fundamentally changing how the team scopes, builds, and ships
- Experience scaling a team or product through a significant growth inflection
Benefits
- Industry-leading medical, dental, and vision health care plans for employees and their dependents
- Rejuvenation Policy – Flexible Vacation Time Off + 11 holidays + holiday company shutdown
- New Parent Leave for employees with a newborn child or a child placed with them for adoption or foster care
- Mental health support
- Paid sabbatical after 5 years for Nerds to recharge, gain knowledge, and pursue their interests
- Health and Dependent Care FSA and HSA Plan with monthly NerdWallet contribution
- Monthly Wellness Stipend, Cell Phone Stipend, and Wifi Stipend (Only remote Nerds are eligible for the Wifi Stipend)
- Work from home equipment stipend and co-working space subsidy (Only remote Nerds are eligible for these stipends)
- Nerd-led group initiatives – Employee Resource Groups for Parents, Diversity, and Inclusion, Women, LGBTQIA, and other communities
- Hackathons and team events across all teams and departments
- Company-wide events like NerdLove (employee appreciation) and our annual Charity Auction
- Take 8 hours of volunteer time off per quarter and donate to your favorite causes with a company match
- 401K with 4% company match
- Be the first to test and benefit from our new financial products and tools
- Financial wellness, guidance, and unlimited access to a Certified Financial Planner (CFP) through Northstar
- Disability and Life Insurance with employer-paid premiums
Additional Information
- No matter where you are based, NerdWallet offers benefits and perks to support the physical, financial, and emotional well being of you and your family.
